Reassessing the Role of Civil Service Reform in Shaping the Outcome of “Second Generation” Reforms â€" Evidence from Russia, Poland and Hungary.

Post-Soviet area scholars have written extensively about the weak institutionalization of executive structures and the elites’ attempts to create â€" with varying degrees of success- a strong, centralized, rationalized and depoliticized “Weberian” state within a democratic framework. Research on the “State after Communism” has theorized about the critical role of enhancing state capacity in affecting post-communist economic reforms. Yet, there is a marked absence in research linking the nature of civil service reform to the outcome of sectoral reforms. The proposed analysis seeks to evaluate the role of civil service reform in implementing “second generation” reforms in post-communist Russia, Poland and Hungary. The three cases demonstrate a marked variation in terms of sectoral reform outcomes. Poland and Hungary, in stark contrast to Russia, are considered leaders in post-communist market reforms. The analysis will demonstrate that civil service reform in all three countries failed to depoliticize and rationalize the bureaucracy. The paper seeks to evaluate why failure to successfully reform post-communist bureaucracies yielded wide variations in terms of market reforms in two sectors â€" namely pension and housing â€" across Russia, Poland and Hungary. Both sectors produced a significant fiscal burden on the state and economic reformers in these countries identified them as critical areas that would impact the overall course of transition to a market economy. The paper argues that civil service reform has been less critical a factor in determining outcomes of second generation reforms, than conventional wisdom suggests. Instead, factors such as modes of transition from communism; the politics of institutional choice; electoral and institutional impediments to state capture by one party or political force; and the ability to construct sustainable pro-reform political coalitions have more significantly impacted the course and outcome of pension and housing reforms in Russia, Poland and Hungary. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]